Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) today announced a multi-year distribution agreement with British Airways (BA) and Iberia Airlines (IB), enabling CWT customers to avoid the airlines' proposed surcharge on bookings created within participating global distribution systems (GDS) that agree to these terms with IAG.

The agreement, effective 1 November 2017, applies to CWT business travel and leisure clients. CWT continues to work with all key parties, to provide further surcharge-free BA and IB content for its customers.

“This agreement further strengthens our long-standing partnership with BA and IB and highlights our mutual commitment to the concept of new distribution capabilities (NDC) to drive improved product differentiation," said Brian Mogler, Senior Vice President, global supplier management, CWT. "While we believe GDSs provide the best technology platform available for CWT to enable best-in-market user experience and operating efficiency, we will continue to monitor and assess new technologies and capabilities.’

Ian Luck, Head of Distribution at British Airways, said: ‘We are delighted with this new agreement which will bring both immediate and longer term benefits. We are particularly pleased with the strong undertaking CWT has made to work collaboratively with us, GDSs and other technology partners in delivering NDC content and other benefits to our customers.’

In May 2017 International Airlines Group (parent company of BA and IB) announced it would add a US$10 ‘distribution technology charge’ on each airline fare component of a booking, effective 1 November 2017. A fare component is a portion of a journey, or itinerary, between two consecutive fare breaks, or legs so, for example, a round trip ticket typically contains two fare components and therefore would have an IAG surcharge of US$20.

About Carlson Wagonlit Travel

Companies and governments rely on us to keep their people connected. We provide their travelers with a consumer-grade travel experience, combining innovative technology with our vast experience. Every day we look after enough travelers to fill almost 200 Boeing 747s and around 100,000 hotel rooms, and handle 95 corporate events. We have more than 18,000 people in nearly 150 countries, and in 2016 posted a total transaction volume of US$ 23 billion.

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